Less than an hour after a meeting of the United Democratic Madhesi Front on Wednesday decided to field Madhesi People´s Rights Forum-Democratic (MPRF-D) Chairman Bijaya Kumar Gachchhadar for the PM race, MPRF Chairman Upendra Yadav said he disagreed with the decision.[break]
“Gachchhadar said at the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) meeting that his party had already decided to field his candidacy and thus it was passed without any discussion with us,” Yadav said emerging from the meeting, adding the MPRF will not own the decision.
A meeting of the UDMF was also called on Tuesday to discuss the issue of fielding a candidate. The meeting was postponed till the next day as the Madhesi leaders failed to reach consensus on a common candidate. Leaders of the Tarai Madhesh Democratic Party (TMDP) and Sadbhawana Party had proposed Gachchhadar´s name. But Yadav opposed it.
MPRF Co-chairman Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta said efforts were underway to persuade his party Chairman Yadav to support Gachchhadar. He added that a meeting of the UDMF has been called for Thursday morning in a bid to forge consensus among the Madhesi parties to vote for Gachchahadar.
“If the meeting fails to yield a positive result, our party is likely to vote for the UCPN(M) candidate,” said Gupta.
The Madhesi parties had decided to enter the PM election fray with their own candidate a few hours after Dahal held separate meetings with Gachchhadar and Yadav. According to a source, Dahal had asked both the leaders to support him and not field their own candidate.
“Yadav was positive on supporting Dahal,” said the source about the meeting.
It is not yet clear what transpired in the meeting between Dahal and Gachchhadar.
Earlier, Gachchhadar had held a meeting with the leaders of fringe parties to solicit their support, which MPRF-D claims to have garnered.
“Most of the fringe parties assured us a vote in our favor prior to the decision, including the Madhesi parties represented in the UDMF,” Sharat Singh Bhandari, MPRF-D leader, told Republica.
He also claimed that although Yadav disowned the UDMF decision, the MPRF-D was hopeful that MPRF will vote for Gachchhadar and added that there was no chance of withdrawing the candidacy.
However, Yadav said the MPRF parliamentary party meeting scheduled for Thursday will decide whom to vote for in the PM election.
Tarai Madhes Democratic Party-Nepal (TMDP-N), which was not present at the UDMF meeting, said it supports Gachchhadar´s candidacy and will vote for him.
“UDMF´s decision is acceptable to us,” Dan Bahadur Chaudhari, a TMDP-N leader, told Republica.
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